For a spy chief, it was an eye-catching claim. “We believe Putin’s advisers are afraid to tell him the truth,” the GCHQ boss, Sir Jeremy Fleming, confidently declared overnight to an audience in Australia.
The head of the British eavesdropping agency offered no details to back up his assertion – leaving the impression it was a piece of psychological warfare, of the “we know all is not well in the Kremlin” type.
